orner."

They had acted as children do, when one says to the other on leaving
school:

"Wait a minute for me, I'll ask mamma if you can come and dine with us."

Brucker, who after all knew how to be agreeable when he chose, took his
place at the table, and all went well.

This proves yet once again the extent to which Delsarte possessed that
charming simplicity so well suited to all distinction.

In the dissertations upon religious subjects incessantly renewed about
Delsarte, it was sometimes declared that "great sinners were surer of
salvation than the most perfect unbelievers in the world."

A young man, who doubtless felt himself to be in the first category,
once said to the master:

"My friend, the good God has been too kind to me! I disobey him, I
offend against his laws.... I repent, and he accepts my prayer! I
relapse into sin--and he forgives me! Decidedly, the good God is a very
poltroon!"

This seems to exceed the unrestrained ease and confidence usual toward
an earthly father; but we must not forget that the inflection modifies
the meaning of a phrase, and that _poltroon_ may mean _adorable_.

This penitent, now famous, carried his provocation of the inexhaustible
goodness very far. At one time in his life he tried to blow out his
brains! By a mere chance--he probably said, by a miracle,--the wound was
not mortal; but he always retained the accusing scar. I never knew
whether this unpleasant adventure preceded or followed Mr. L.'s
conversion, or whether it was coincident with one of the relapses of
which that repentant sinner accused himself.

Another very religious friend was no less fragile in the observance of
his firm vow. Becoming a widower, he swore eternal fidelity to the
"departed angel." Soon after, he was seen with another wife on his arm!

"And your angel?" whispered a sceptic in his ear.

"Oh, my friend!" was the reply, "this one is an archangel."

Another figure haunted Delsarte and afforded yet another proof of his
tolerance. The Italian, C----, shared neither his political ideas nor
his religious beliefs; he was one of those refugees whom the defeats of
the Carbonari have cast upon our soil, and whose necessities
France--does our neighbor remember this?--for years supplied, as if they
were her own children. However, she could offer them but a precarious
living.

Signer C., to give some charm to his wretched existence, desired to add
to his scanty budget a strong dose of hope an